Film Review - What's Up, Tiger Lily?

Sometimes a film isn't as good as you remembered it as a kid.

In the early 1960's Woody Allen bought a Japanese b-movie called Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi or International Secret Police: Key of Keys for $66,000.00. He then tossed out the sound track and wrote one of his own. The result is What's Up, Tiger Lily?, a spoof of early James Bond films.

This is Bond turned on his ear. Allen wrote about 200 jokes per scene to twist the film. During a scene with a topless dancer, Allen covered the woman's breasts and put up a graphic that said, "Foreign Version". Jokes were the cause of playing the film forwards, and then backwards, and finally forwards again.

The trouble is the original Japanese film was pretty bad to begin with. So What's Up, Tiger Lily? is trying to dress up a pig.

This was a very risque film for 1964, but today the impact is gone. An example of a film that didn't age well.

Dust Bag Full

Film Facts

Directed by Woody Allen

Released in 1966

MPAA Rating: PG

Reviewed by Mongo